Pilots sacrifice provides link

SIXTY-FIVE years after a Feilding-born World War II pilot was shot down over France, a link between the mayors of the two towns that book-ended Ronald Charles Ostend Beazer’s life has been established.

Manawatu District Mayor, Ian McKelvie, accepted an invitation this week to make contact with Pierre-Etienne Goffinet, Mayor of Avord, a small farming village in central France where Flying Officer Ronnie Beazer is buried.

The invitation was delivered by Ron Beazer, of Christchurch, who has visited Avord on two occasions, to visit the crash site and to attend a street-naming ceremony in honour of his uncle’s ultimate sacrifice.

Ronnie Beazer was the son of Catherine and Charles Beazer and lived on the corner of Awahuri and Giesen Roads in a house that is still there today. He attended Feilding High School and was a carpenter for Charles Luney before starting his pilot training in Levin and Taieri in 1941. He received his wings in Canada in June 1942.

On joining 487 NZ Squadron, Ronnie Beazer flew Venturas and Mosquitoes and was on his 37th operation when his two-seater Mosquito was hit by ack-ack fire and crashed near Avord around midnight on July 5, 1944.

Reports indicate that the Mosquito was spotted on a moonlit night approaching the township from the direction of Bourges, 20km to the west. As it began a strafing run on a German freight train at the station it took a direct hit from a flak battery gun. The plane crashed in flames in a field about 1km from Avord in an area known as Cayenne.

The 29-year-old Kiwi pilot and his British navigator, Pilot Officer Andy Munro, were killed and are buried alongside each other in the village cemetery.

Mr Beazer said on his first trip to Avord (population 3000) in 2004, on the 60th anniversary of his uncle’s death, he was accorded a mayoral reception involving councillors and representatives from a nearby French Air Force base and museum.

 

“It was a very humbling experience and totally unexpected,” he said.

A commemorative plaque honouring Ronnie Beazer’s “sacrifice for the freedom of France” was presented to Mr Beazer and he was invited back for the street-naming ceremony in a new sub-division near the crash site three years later.

Mr Beazer subsequently unveiled the street plaque, “Rue R C O Beazer Pilote RNZAF 1915-1944”, and said it had been an “extremely proud and emotional moment for the Beazer family and myself”.

A special booklet was also prepared by town and air force museum officials for the Beazer family with details of their visits to Avord, and the unveiling ceremony, as well as a history of 487 NZ Squadron during World War II and a report on the crash.

Mr McKelvie assured Mr Beazer that he would make contact with his mayoral colleague in Avord to acknowledge the tremendous tributes paid to Ronnie Beazer and his family.

“It’s an interesting link and a great story, and it’s nice to think that places like France still have the time to recognize what happened, especially in World War II,” he said.